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Person In News: November 2010

Ronald Noble was Re-elected to Interpol

• Ronald Noble, who has been Secretary-General of Interpol for the past 10 years, was re-elected to
the post for a third five-year term at the global police agency's general assembly in Doha.

• The U.S. former prosecutor was the only candidate. President of the committee Boon Hui Khoo
praised Mr. Noble as a “tireless advocate of international law enforcement forces”. Delegates
praised Mr. Noble's efforts to modernise Interpol.

Shyamoli Gupta was elected president of AIDWA

• All-India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) has elected Shyamoli Gupta from
West Bengal as their president. Sudha Sundararaman will continue as general secretary
for another three-year term.

L.C. Jain a well-known Gandhian passes away

• Well-known Gandhian and Magsaysay Award winner L.C. Jain passed away following
prolonged illness He was 85.An economist, organiser, commentator and activist, Mr. Jain
spent more than six decades of his life as an impassioned crusader for what Mahatma
Gandhi called India's second freedom struggle — the fight against socio-economic
oppression.

• Known as a fierce opponent of overwhelming state control and an ardent advocate for
social action, his efforts to keep alive the legacy of the freedom struggle through the
intervention of civil society led to him being awarded the Magsaysay Award in 1988.

Ela Bhatt doing path-breaking work for women: Hillary

• Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association, was presented with the
first Global Fairness Initiative Award by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
“for her contribution to India and particularly the women of India, and to the global
community.”

• SEWA, with a membership of over 1.2 million, works towards “strengthening women's
leadership, their confidence, their bargaining power within and outside their homes and
their representation on policy-making and decision-making.

Nehchal Sandhu is new IB chief

• Nehchal Sandhu, Special Director in the Intelligence Bureau, was named its new
Director. He will succeed Rajiv Mathur, who retires on December 31.

• The appointment of Mr. Sandhu, a 1973-batch Indian Police Service officer of Bihar
cadre, was cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. Mr. Sandhu, 58, an
old hand in the IB with vast experience from dealing with Kashmir affairs to the

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operational aspects of the intelligence agency, will have a tenure of two years, beginning
January 1, 2011.

Chernomyrdin dead
• The former Prime Minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, who steered the Russian economy
through its stormy transition from Communism to capitalism in the 1990s, died here at
the age of 72.

• President Boris Yeltsin appointed Mr. Chernomyrdin as Prime Minister at the end of 1992
and he stayed in the post till 1998, becoming the longest serving head of government in
post-Soviet Russia. He took charge of the economy when it was in a nosedive triggered
by incompetent “shock therapy” at the hands of radical reformers led by Yegor Gaidar.
State finances were in disarray as oil plunged to $9 per barrel, annual inflation measured
in thousands of percentage points and whole industries were grinding to a halt.

• After Vladimir Putin became President, he appointed Mr. Chernomyrdin as Ambassador

to Ukraine in 2001 and he remained in this post until last year.

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